Do you get word of mouth referrals for your design business?

Growing your design business takes a lot of hard work. Especially when first starting out. Word of mouth referrals are and always will be the most effective way of achieving this growth.

Back in episode 67 of the podcast, I shared a proven strategy for getting design referrals. That episode was more geared to designers working in a specific niche. I received a lot of great feedback on that episode but one question kept coming up. How do I get design referrals if I don't have a niche? Hence this episode, be sure to listen to the podcast for all the details.

As designers, we work in a world of marketing, advertising, promoting, social sharing and so much more, but nothing beats an evangelist who spreads the word about you and your services by word of mouth.

When you break it down to its core elements, there are only two main ingredients to garner word of mouth referrals.

• You need to offer great designs to your clients
• You need to offer great service to your clients

That's it. If you can offer both of those you are on your way to getting word of mouth referrals.

It all comes down to client relationships. The better the relationship with your client the better the chance they will refer someone to you.

Why is word of mouth so important?

Here are some stats I came across while researching this episode.

92% of consumers are influenced by word of mouth.

This means 92% of potential clients will choose a designer based on what they are told over what they see or read in advertising.

76% of consumers refer a company they trust.

This means 76% of your clients will refer you to someone else providing they have a good relationship with you.

59% of business will ask their peers for advice before making a purchase

This means 59% of business owners, your potential clients, will ask other business owners their advice before choosing a designer.

With these numbers already in your favour, why not give them a little push. Don't sit back and wait to see what will happen. Be proactive and take charge of your own word of mouth campaign.

How you should promote word of mouth referrals Be proactive.

Don’t wait until after the project is done to ask for referrals. Ask for referrals up front. Tell your clients from the start what services you will be providing them and ask that they share what you’re doing with others. Tell them that if they’re happy working with you, you would be grateful if they would pass on your name to friends, family and colleagues who might require similar work.

Be sure to mention other services you do that they could refer you for. Who knows, you may even get more work from them.

Offer an expiring incentive for referrals.

Even with the best of intentions clients will probably forget to refer you when the chance arises. But if you offer them an incentive, especially one with an expiry date, they will be more inclined to think about who could use your services.

Offering a gift card for every referral they send your way is nice. However, offering a gift card for every referral they send your way within the next 30 days gives them a lot more incentive to talk about you.

Give them an easy way to make referrals.

The easier you make it for them the more chance they will refer you. Give them extra business cards to hand out. Provide them with your social media profiles to share. Create a referral form on your website they can use to introduce potential clients to you.

Thank them and keep on thanking them.

As soon as you hear from a referred client, even if they don't hire you, you should thank the person that referred them to you. Letting your client know how much you appreciate the referral will go a long way to garner even more referrals.

If the referred client does hire you, let the client that referred them know how the project turned out. You can even send them a thank you gift afterwards regardless if you gave them a referral incentive or not. The bigger the project the more personal the thank you should be.

It's all up to you.

By taking advantage of these simple tools you will become more visible, gain the trust of your clients, build better relationships with them, and increase your bottom line.

Start your word of mouth campaign today!

How have you promoted word of mouth referrals for your design business?

Let me know by leaving a comment for this episode.

Questions of the Week

Submit your question to be featured in a future episode of the podcast by visiting the feedback page.

This week’s question comes from James

Thank you for your article on retainer agreements. I had a question. How do you handle the assignment of rights for the artwork. What if it is likely that one will be designing logos or original characters under a retainer agreement?

To find out what I told James you’ll have to listen to the podcast.

Tip of the week The Golden Ratio

I'm not going to go into the mathematics of the Golden Ratio (or Golden Spiral). Simply put, it's a formula that appears in many places in nature. Many believe it's the formula that adds beauty to the things we see around us. By incorporating this formula into your design work you can create designs that are much more appealing to the eye. Have a look at these YouTube videos on how to incorporate the Golden Ratio into your design work.

Subscribe to the podcast

Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Stitcher Subscribe on Android Subscribe on Google Play Music

Contact me

Send me feedback

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook

I want to help you.

Running a graphic design or web design business all by yourself isn't easy. If there are any struggles you face running your design business please reach out to me. I'll do my best to help you by addressing your issues in a future blog post or podcast episode here at Resourceful Designer. You can reach me at [email protected]